https://prospect.org/topic/race-ethnicity
enThe Nine New Democratic Black Congress Members Come From Heavily White Districtshttps://prospect.org/article/nine-new-democratic-black-congress-members-come-heavily-white-districts
<div class="field field-name-field-feature-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="https://prospect.org/sites/default/files/styles/feature_teaser/public/ap_18253593991335_1.jpg?itok=MvBGYUnC" width="220" height="147" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">AP Photo/Teresa Crawford Democratic Representative-elect Lauren Underwood, who defeated of four-term Republican incumbent Randy Hultgren on November 6, campaigning in Lindenhurst, Illinois. T he blue wave had some black riders. Every African American Democrat in the House running for re-election in this year’s midterms won his or her race. In addition, voters sent nine new black members, all Democrats, to Congress. As a result, the number of black House members will grow to an all-time peak of 55, even if, as appears possible, both black Republicans(Utah’s Mia Love and Texas’ Will Hurt) lose their seats. What’s unusual about the nine new members is that all of them prevailed in predominantly white and mostly suburban districts. Five of the nine are women. For most of the 20th century, there were few black members of Congress. In 1950, only two African Americans (William Dawson of Chicago’s South Side and Adam Clayton Powell of Harlem) served in the House. The civil rights movement and...</div></div></div>Mon, 12 Nov 2018 12:56:06 +0000231514 at https://prospect.orgPeter DreierCivil Rights Advocate Elected to North Carolina Supreme Courthttps://prospect.org/article/civil-rights-advocate-elected-north-carolina-supreme-court
<div class="field field-name-field-feature-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="https://prospect.org/sites/default/files/styles/feature_teaser/public/ap_18296562779654_1.jpg?itok=E9TizcbX" width="220" height="145" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">AP Photo/Chuck Burton A voter arrives as a worker walks past during early voting at a polling place in Charlotte, North Carolina. D emocrat Anita Earls, founder and executive director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, won a seat on the North Carolina Supreme Court on Tuesday in the Tar Heel State’s “blue moon” election, so-called since once every 12 years there is an election with no high-profile statewide races on the ballot. Earls is the daughter of a black father and a white mother. Her victory underscores the importance state-level judicial decision-making as the Supreme Court of the United States appears headed into a period of retrenchment on civil rights. Yet in her remarks Tuesday night, Earls turned to Washington as she condemned President Trump’s assertion that he can strike down the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship through an executive order. “The president is sworn, just as I will be, to uphold the Constitution. For him to openly say that...</div></div></div>Fri, 09 Nov 2018 19:22:51 +0000231509 at https://prospect.orgGabrielle GurleyIs Xenophobia Politically Rational?https://prospect.org/article/xenophobia-politically-rational
<div class="field field-name-field-feature-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="https://prospect.org/sites/default/files/styles/feature_teaser/public/ap_18310190772685_1.jpg?itok=QsayZyCn" width="220" height="147" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">AP Photo/Jeff Roberson Members of the audience cheer as President Donald Trump leaves the stage at the end of a campaign rally in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. J ust as he had in 2016, Donald Trump defied the conventional wisdom about how to win in 2018 by making inflammatory statements about immigrants and refugees. This year, when he might have emphasized the state of the economy, he chose instead in the final weeks of the campaign to whip up hysteria about the immigrant caravan in Mexico, claim that refugees bring in gangs and terrorists, and call for an end to birthright citizenship. Trump’s incendiary rhetoric has renewed a debate about whether he and other Republicans who have made similar appeals to their base are acting impulsively from the gut or according to a rational political logic. The results of the 2018 election now provide more evidence on that question, though not a definitive answer. Before the election, Matt A. Barreto—a UCLA political scientist who is a co-founder of...</div></div></div>Thu, 08 Nov 2018 10:00:00 +0000231498 at https://prospect.orgPaul StarrHow Will Hate Play in the Midterms?https://prospect.org/article/how-will-hate-play-midterms
<div class="field field-name-field-feature-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="https://prospect.org/sites/default/files/styles/feature_teaser/public/ap_18300856040512_1.jpg?itok=bSHFfMTd" width="220" height="147" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">AP Photo/Andrew Harnik President Donald Trump waves as he departs a rally at Southern Illinois Airport in Murphysboro, Illinois. F or months, President Donald Trump has been trying to nationalize the midterm elections. The strategy had a certain logic — until this past week. Normally, there is a dramatic falloff in turnout from a presidential election to a midterm. But given that Trump’s base adores him, if he can get those voters to turn out at anything like 2016 rates, the usual rules won’t apply and his allies will hold Congress. Thus, Trump has been campaigning for Republicans far more aggressively than the usual president in a midterm―certainly more aggressively than a president with overall popularity ratings in the mid-forties in a good week. In some GOP quarters, optimism was growing about the party’s prospects on November 6. But then something happened that threw Trump off balance. Hateful chickens came home to roost. Just days after Trump praised Representative Greg...</div></div></div>Tue, 30 Oct 2018 09:00:00 +0000231395 at https://prospect.orgRobert KuttnerThe Hate at the Heart of Powerhttps://prospect.org/article/hate-heart-power
<div class="field field-name-field-feature-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="https://prospect.org/sites/default/files/styles/feature_teaser/public/ap_18300856758074_1.jpg?itok=-_IootyV" width="220" height="147" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photo-caption field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">(AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Trump departs a rally at Southern Illinois Airport in Murphysboro, Illinois, on October 27, 2018. T hings are very bad. They’re very bad in America, and even worse in much of the world , thanks to the global rise of hate-fueled politics. Yet nearly two years after the election that delivered a proud bigot and pathological liar to the Oval Office, supporters of the lying bigot defend their man, acting as if there’s a debate to be had over whether the liar-in-chief’s behavior had anything to do with a week soaked in the blood of bigotry, beginning with the murder of an African American Kentucky couple by an apparent white supremacist (after he failed to gain entry to a black church), and ending with the massacre of 11 Jews in their place of worship by an anti-Semite. In between, another act of domestic terrorism against the United States of America—the attempted pipe-bombing of a former president and top members of his administration, among others—failed only...</div></div></div>Mon, 29 Oct 2018 17:22:43 +0000231393 at https://prospect.orgAdele M. StanThe 2016 Election Was Ultimately About One Big Thinghttps://prospect.org/article/2016-election-was-ultimately-about-one-big-thing
<div class="field field-name-field-feature-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="https://prospect.org/sites/default/files/styles/feature_teaser/public/ap_16289016085624_1.jpg?itok=ThTcRgCP" width="220" height="147" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photo-caption field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">(AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">(AP Photo/ Evan Vucci) Supporters of Donald Trump cheer during a presidential campaign rally on October 14, 2016, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America By John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck Princeton University Press This article appears in the Spring 2018 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here . W ith more than 20 candidates and expanded sources of both news and disinformation, the 2016 presidential campaign was a cacophonous circus. And with a result that hinged on razor-thin margins across Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, post-election analyses have been equally disorienting. They have pointed to meddling by the Russian GRU and the American FBI; white people, black people, brown people; Hillary Clinton’s hubris, her charity, her wardrobe; widespread racism, misogyny, piety, fear, and desperation. With the luxury of hindsight and analytical acumen, political scientists...</div></div></div>Fri, 19 Oct 2018 09:00:20 +0000231332 at https://prospect.orgJustin GestThink the GOP Tax Cut Was for the Rich? Actually, It Was for the White and Rich.https://prospect.org/article/think-gop-tax-cut-was-rich-actually-it-was-white-and-rich
<div class="field field-name-field-feature-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="https://prospect.org/sites/default/files/styles/feature_teaser/public/ap_17354826420317_1.jpg?itok=4LQYC7NZ" width="220" height="136" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photo-caption field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">(Photo by Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/Sipa via AP Images)</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">(Photo by Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/Sipa via AP Images) Republicans wave to President Trump at an event to celebrate the passage of the 2017 Republican Tax Act on the South Lawn of the White Hosue on December 20, 2017. trickle-downers.jpg T he $1.5 trillion tax cut signed into law last December by President Trump is not only widening the economic gap between the rich and everyone else, but also between white Americans and people of color. That’s according to a new, first-of-its-kind analysis of the 2017 Republican Tax Act by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) and Prosperity Now, a nonprofit advocacy group for low-income households. Using an economic model created by ITEP, the report drills down on the racial implications of the Republicans’ handiwork. The report’s authors found that racial inequities are a feature of the tax law, not a bug—Trump’s tax cuts champion Americans with existing wealth over those struggling to create new wealth. Of the $275 billion in...</div></div></div>Tue, 16 Oct 2018 09:00:20 +0000231310 at https://prospect.orgManuel MadridWhat Happens When You Can’t Catch a Ride to the Polls?https://prospect.org/article/what-happens-when-you-cant-catch-ride-polls
<div class="field field-name-field-feature-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="https://prospect.org/sites/default/files/styles/feature_teaser/public/ap_18263655937584_1.jpg?itok=RKeosOaI" width="220" height="165" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photo-caption field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">(AP Photo/Steve Karnowski)</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">(AP Photo/Steve Karnowski) Voting booths stand ready in downtown Minneapolis on September 20, 2018, for Friday's opening of early voting in Minnesota. mobility_icon.png G etting a ride with Uber or Lyft doesn’t spring immediately to mind as an example of democracy in action, but on Election Day, the companies plan to offer discounted rides and free trips to voters facing transportation challenges in partnership with groups like #VoteTogether and DemocracyWorks (Uber) and the National Federation of the Blind, Voto Latino, and the National Urban League (Lyft). There’s more to this than good corporate citizenship, as the firms anticipate profiting from their discounted fares and from broadening their rider base, though they also are working with voting-rights groups to raise awareness of voter-registration tools and other election information. Forward-thinking transit systems in some cities and smaller locales also offer free rides on Election Day. But most people fend for themselves...</div></div></div>Mon, 15 Oct 2018 09:00:20 +0000231294 at https://prospect.orgGabrielle GurleyGerman Lessons for Great Britain on European Workershttps://prospect.org/article/german-lessons-great-britain-on-european-workers
<div class="field field-name-field-feature-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="https://prospect.org/sites/default/files/styles/feature_teaser/public/ap_18198489666910_1.jpg?itok=I7ONBvz2" width="220" height="147" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photo-caption field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">(zz/KGC-375/STAR MAX/IPx via AP Images)</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">(zz/KGC-375/STAR MAX/IPx via AP Images) German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May on July 10, 2018 O ne of the knottiest problems for British politicians struggling with Brexit is their insistence, as much by Labour as by the Conservatives, that Britain has to set up a giant new immigration bureaucracy to issue work and residence permits for any European citizen who is offered a job in Britain. Undoubtedly, the main factor in swinging the Brexit vote was that it gave white English men and women their chance to vote against immigrants. Fifty years ago, a racist but very senior Tory politician, Enoch Powell, said Britain was “mad, literally mad, as a nation” to allow immigrants into the country. Powellism sunk deep roots very fast, even if it was repudiated by the party leaders of the day. Powell was also hostile to Britain joining the European Community. That fusion of two English phobias—against immigration and against Europe—never went away. After 2000,...</div></div></div>Tue, 02 Oct 2018 09:00:20 +0000231180 at https://prospect.orgDenis MacShaneSweden Shows No Country Is Immune to Far-Right, Anti-Immigrant Backlashhttps://prospect.org/article/sweden-shows-no-country-immune-far-right-anti-immigrant-backlash
<div class="field field-name-field-feature-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img src="https://prospect.org/sites/default/files/styles/feature_teaser/public/ap_18252765429609_1.jpg?itok=X6U_RgzD" width="220" height="147" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Anders Wiklund /TT via AP Jimmie Åkesson, leader of the far-right Sweden Democrats, speaks at the election party in Stockholm. This article originally appeared at The Huffington Post. Subscribe here . S weden has long been one of the world’s most generous and tolerant countries. Its outlays on foreign aid and relief efforts are among the world’s highest, and with just 9.9 million inhabitants, Sweden has taken in far more than its share of migrants and refugees. Sweden has also had one of the world’s most inclusive social contracts, allowing prosperity to be broadly shared. The Swedes have long had a secret sauce of dynamic entrepreneurship, strong labor unions, and a comprehensive welfare state. But in Sunday’s election, Sweden demonstrated that no country is immune from the anti-immigrant, far-right backlash. The neo-fascist Sweden Democrats gained 17.6 percent of the vote , upending the country’s traditional party system, and leaving both the existing center-left and center-right...</div></div></div>Tue, 11 Sep 2018 09:00:00 +0000231034 at https://prospect.orgRobert Kuttner